March 27, 2011

Here's an amusing CNN video segment about how on the superb peninsula north of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, "Officials in California's Marin County are trying to turn around its image" of being a Whitopia. At one point, the correspondent appears to be cracking up.

The federal government recently took Marin to task for not reaching out more to people of color when it comes to providing affordable housing. The feds say Marin is not fully in compliance with the 1964 Civil Rights Act… … A county spokesman tells me it’s difficult to build any new housing in Marin. … Marin County is now promising to do more in a report just issued this week. The feds are reviewing it.

The Obama Administration: solving the problems of Libya and Marin County, simultaneously! What can't it do?

But nonwhites hate gays. Is Marin County as gay as the rest of SF? If so, look out. After that gay marriage proposition was voted down by droves of minorities sweeping Obama into office, the gays got quite nasty.

"Affordable" (that means poor black, by the way, in Diversityspeak) housing in an upper-middle class area? That is where the rubber meets the road, politically speaking. This is a bold move by the Obama administration (well, perhaps not so bold, if Marin County is a Republican area. I'll admit I know very little about the political makeup of California). People buy homes in the best area that they can afford, so that they do not have to put up with welfare/Section 8 housing, drug dealing, street violence, etc. When the government forces a population prone to these problems on liberal upper-class whites, all hell breaks loose (the Single Room Occupancy "SRO" hotel kerfuffle on Manahattan's Upper West Side some years ago is a good example).I wonder just how far Obama will go with this before his political handlers tell him to pull back.

uh-oh, Steve, you are sure starting to sound like Instapundit here (not that I have much against him - he's just a little slow to catch on to reality sometimes). Don't feel too bad; Reynolds got this line from The Simpsons, of course.

You can feel free to start using this one, too, as Glenn didn't make this up either. It goes like "Hey, they told me if I voted for Ron Paul and Chuck Baldwin the country was going to go straight to hell, and they were right!"

How is Marin not fully in compliance with the 1964 Civil Rights act? Does it mandate racial residential integration at the county level? How about local communities? (The Amish?)

I know racially discriminatory laws, legal covenants, public accomodations, and the like are prohibited. As are employment practices -- though I am unclear as to how the issue of employment discrimination relates to the issue of residence and/or distance to work. New Orleans required city residence for all its police officers. Was that illegal?

To blacks, obedient white tax payers are cash cows to be regularly milked. Black leaders know what happens to chocolate city if it doesn't have a substantial scoop of vanilla ice cream on top: Camden and Detroit, that's what happens. And that's why Obama's feds are finally going after his white base in Marin. The Bay Area is simply running out of white people to milk. Due to the minority mortgage meltdown, it certainly isn't running out of available section 8 housing for minorities in Richmond, Oakland, Antioch, Emeryville, Alameda, Pinole, San Leandro, Hayward, Union City, Newark, Vallejo...

Perhaps whites should consider negotiating for racial separation on a local level by paying a black tax -- in other words, pony up the outrageous tribute black politicians want to build pointless schools, hire extra city workers, and build public parks and facilities in predominantly black neighborhoods situated at least 10 miles away with no bus lines or light rail connecting them to the white community.

Here's a comment about falling black population in coastal CA I left at HS:

Coastal California already had a very low black population in 2000, but it got even lower this past decade. The trend is the same as many people have noted in DC and Manhattan, where the most desirable older neighborhoods are rapidly losing their black populations.

In 2000 there were 7 census tracts in San Diego where blacks were the largest group, now there are 0. There are also none in Orange County or the southern end of LA County for a combined urban area of 8 million people from Palos Verdes to the Mexican border with not a single true black neighborhood.

In San Francisco the number of plurality black census tracts went from 10 to 6. One census track in SF saw the black population fall 71% and the white population increase 13%, and the city as a whole lost 20% of its black population. In Alameda County (Oakland) the number of 50% black tracts went from 16 to 6 between 2000 and 2010.

The blacks that remain in coastal CA are less likely to live in a black area and more likely to live in an area that is less than 5% black. Since CA is too expensive for many blacks to move to, and they are increasingly rare and spread out, I would expect the fully black population of California to soon almost disappear via continued out-migration and intermixing except for a small core area around Los Angeles and Oakland, which will continue to shrink.

In Los Angeles, the areas of Venice Beach and Culver City that had the largest black populations saw their black population go down by 20-45%.

I was just there this January. The program I was involved with had teachers and resource management type people in it. There was not one Asian, not one Mexican and not one black person involved in any of the jobs or operations. I thought wow this is Calfornia, but it is really Marin County which is pretty damn white.

But it is also Jewish. While there were no asians or mexicans or blacks involved there were plenty of Jews. Who says Jews are liberals who love the other? Not me. and Marin county proves it.

Blacks can live in 96-99% black areas, but whites can't? The black people who live there shouldn't want more blacks. How does that violate the Civil Rights Act exactly?

Like grade school when the teacher made kids sit in an assembly boy-girl-boy-girl, the Feds are going to force every neighborhood to be white -black-hispanic-white black hispanic. No free association in this country.

"THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED REPUBLICAN, AMERICAN WORKERS WOULD LOSE THE RIGHT TO STRIKE: And They Were Right! “The U.S. isn’t allowing flight attendants at financially strapped American Airlines to walk the picket lines any time soon, and that could change the tone of labor negotiations across the industry, some experts said Friday.”"

I lived in Tiburon for a short time - a long time ago. Tiburon is different from Marin as a whole. It's a peninsula jutting out into Bay. When I was living there, there were only two roads in - one on the east side and one on the west.

Tiburon and Belvedere compete with the French Riviera for upscale residents. The population is indeed white but more importantly rich, old and well behaved. Tiburon's crime rate is barely a third of that of the rest of California. There are no rapes or murders there.

There are Blacks in Marin - mostly in Marin City where the woman in the clip had come from. Marin City is a public housing project with a mostly Black population. It's the kind of place where the cops fear to go after dark.

Marin County has plenty of "non-whites," especially San Rafael and Novato. There was a Sureno gang hit at a Novato shopping center only a couple of months ago. They don't have many blacks, but they have a ton of la raza.

this was a similar theme in pittsburgh newspapers when the 2010 US census information was released. reporters described the census results as a "sobering lack of diversity". i just cracked up when i saw that. hope my parents enjoy their lack of diversity.

pennsylvania, the state where i grew up, was one of the states least affected by the 1965 hart-celler act. but in the language of 2011 america, that's "sobering" and "a real concern".

Being in Marin every day, I can tell you the entire premise is a huge lie. Marin has more people "of color" than ever. It's just that they're Mexicans rather than blacks. Mexicans seem to have no trouble getting jobs with the various municipal entities - I don't know if they've found a way to pay them less or what. For a long time Marin City, adjacent to Sausalito, was heavily black, with the expected dose of violent crime, but over the last 10 yrs. that town has become less black, for reasons unknown to me, since almost all the housing there is subsidized. At the Safeway in Strawberry, more of the employees are black than ever before.

I grew up in Marin. People move there because it's a de facto sundown town. They are very wealthy and very well organized. Dollars to donuts, someone will pull some strings behind the scenes and make this all go away.

A few years ago, someone wanted to put in affordable housing in Mill Valley. Every person I talked to, who lived in Mill Valley, was for it, yet it didn't get passed. Hmmm, I wonder why that is?

Marin county is full of semi-wealthy and wealthy SWPL types who promulgate the benefits of diversity. It is only fair and reasonable that they experience for themselves what they believe to be beneficial for everyone else. It would be good for them to get a dose of their own medicine.

I would love to see Obama really push this, put Section 8 housing right smack dab in the middle of wealthy Marin areas. And yes, per the previous poster, Obama needs to do this to keep his Black power-patronage network happy. Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton, and of course Louis Farrakhan are central for Obama's re-election plan.

Somewhat pertinent to this discussion is that the adjective 'whitest' is used with disapproval when it does not serve the interests, or tastes, of an alien group (i.e. anyone other than the Whites themselves) - but when 'whitest' means profit and pleasure for said alien group then it becomes inoffensive. Mr T Woods' new sweetheart is very similar to his former wife (you remember her, she was continually wronged by her adulterer husband, who beside shame gave her two children who can never resemble their mother). Could you say that rich blacks have the 'whitest' sexual proclivities in the world?

The "They told me if I voted for McCain . . . " gag that Instapundit keeps reusing is from the mid-1960s, and went "They told me if I voted for Goldwater, he would get us into a war in Vietnam. Well, I voted for Goldwater and that's what happened.

It's incorrectly attributed to Wm. F. Buckley but I can't verify the source. Anyway, it's kind of tired out now. I do prefer Glenn's "Heh" to an over-amused "lol!"

How about the following proposal to fix the educational crisis in America. Devise something along the line of the brilliant OWNERSHIP SOCIETY.

Remember how Wall Street found a way to buy up all the subprime loans by banks and lenders, package them together with good loans, have them rated AAA by Moody's, and sell them all around the world? A genius plan indeed.

Well, why not do the same thing with grades. Instead of dealing with school grades on an individual basis--Isaac got an A, Jack got a B, Felipe got a C, Lylye got a D, Tyrone got an F, etc--, why not just collect all the grades of every student and pass them to a centralized third party, something like Wall Street of National Education. This way, teachers are no longer accountable for how they graded their students, and schools no longer hold the grades as their own.

Instead, all the grades collected by the Third party, called Blackboard Street, are bundled together and sliced into little pieces. Each piece is graded A by an educational counterpart to Moody's and handed back to each student as his final grade: an A. That way, you have 100% graduation rate, and everyone goes to good colleges. How can anything go wrong with this?

Not for lack of trying. Our social services are so outstanding, you know. I think social workers on the coast are sending blacks to Montana for that..but it's too cold for them and they don't last long.

Meanwhile we have an endless stream of white yuppies moving in and infiltrating local government, keeping us on track for progressive oblivion. Of course, coming here from NY or Cali or ??? proves that they are all racist.

There are two significant black enclaves in Marin. One is Marin City, which is a valley of 60s style multistory "projects". It's famous for an awesomely high per-pupil budget in its public schools because it draws on the property taxes of adjacent super-rich Tiburon, and correspondingly the world's lowest SAT score per dollar ratio.

"Diversity" comes in two forms. Elitist and mass-ist. Elitist diversity can be fun, and I believe it's great for all nations to have diverse-cosmopolitan urban centers where the best minds, businessmen, most creative people, etc come together, exchange ideas, mingle, learn from one another. Paris used to be such place for arts and culture. Hong Kong has long been a place for world trade, which is why Mao didn't grab it in 49. He kept it in British hands to do business with the rest of the world.

If the very best--richest, most intelligent, most creative--around the world mingle in London, Paris, NY, Tokyo, Dubai, Jerusalem, etc, I don't see any problem. What's wrong with Tokyo or Warsaw having French or Chinese restaurants, top American jazz players, businessmen from around the world, etc. So, cosmopolitan diversity is not the problem. Indeed, it can lead to great progress. Which was the more creative center of change in the past 100 yrs? NY or Boise Idaho? Silicon Valley or Wasila Alaska? Cosmopolitan diversity is centered around the exchange and sharing of talent, skills, ideas, business, etc. It is by nature elitist, reserved to the well-educated or at least intellectually inclined and/or ambitious.

The problem is mass-ist diversity where we bring in lots of dummies, bummies, losers, and other such fools from the rest of the world. As I understand it, places like Tokyo will accept and even welcome top talents from other countries to do businss with, but they will not open their door to massive immigration of dummies and bummies. Diversity of talent and diversity of ineptness are two different things.

To be sure, some seeming 'dummies' turn out, in the long run, to be quite talented. Jews and Japanese arrived in the US as poor folks but both groups are among the elites in many professions. But I don't see much of that happening with Somalis and the like.

I remember reading a newspaper article sometime in the 90's about a Boulder city councilman who was publicly fretting about the lack of diversity. (I don't know if he used the term 'white' though. Too crass?) I forget exactly what precipitated the comment. They might have been thinking about building low income housing or something.

I thought it was pretty funny. Boulder is an expensive place. And the people who live there apparently like it that way. That fact that it's all white must offend their smug liberalism. Which is great, but of course it's not like any of them are going to move to 5 Points in Denver.

"So, cosmopolitan diversity is not the problem. Indeed, it can lead to great progress. Which was the more creative center of change in the past 100 yrs? NY or Boise Idaho? "

Unfortunately, those cosmopolitan diversities love bringing in lots of dummies, bummies, and losers diversities to serve as their servants -- and house them conveniently out of sight in the towns populated by honest (White) middle class Americans.

Case in point: Jackson, WY, where the billionaires are squeezing out the millionaires. Jackson is the quintessential Sundown Town, Version 2.0. Beware the buses careening through Snake River canyon at 8 am, bringing mestizo maids and dishwashers to work in the resorts -- and then removing them back over the mountain again at 5, so they won't spoil the view.

In this way: in 2008 Marin County voted 78-20 for Barack Obama. It is the home county of Johnny Walker Lindh, and one of the most liberal in the country. If we are ever to get the government out of the business of enforced diversity it will only be by forcing upper-class white liberals to enjoy its benefits and blessings.

If I were a billionaire with money to burn I would buy up thousands of homes in the nicest neighborhoods and rent them cheaply to illegal immigrants and ghetto trash. That would include 1,605 homes - one on either side of every congressman and one across the street.

"Who says Jews are liberals who love the other?""

I have often heard Jews pat themselves on the back for supporting the civil rights movement, but in my own experience they are far less likely to spend much time enjoying real diversity than other Americans, on average.

In one Southern city I lived in the high school in the Jewish section of town (all of the synagogues and temples were within about 2 miles of each other) had an "optional program." The students were effectively sequestered from mandatory busing, and while the school was about half black they were kept in entirely separate classrooms. When the kid of one neighbor - a Jewish, left-liberal, card-carrying member of the ACLU (literally) - was kicked out of the magnet program, he managed to get into the school in the next district over, which was < 10% black. Kind of like all those Jewish kids who go to school in Beverly Hills despite living elsewhere. School officials in New York know they can't move boundaries by so much as a foot else they get an insurrection on their hands, and the US county with the highest percentage of students in private schools is - drumroll, please - San Francisco, at 29.3%.

"The county is 25% non-white, btw."

Which is more white than Portland or Salt Lake. And it's not about the percentages, it's about the distribution. The parts of Marin I've been through didn't seem to have any NAMs at all.

I think the government should make a list of the top 100 rich white residential areas in America, and then build public housing projects there. I think it'd be awesome if the Kennedys, Clintons, Bushs, McCains, and the rest of the gang had the privilege of enjoying diversity every day of the week.

Obama should also send Libyan refugees to live near Martha's Vineyard, Kennenbunkport, and Crawford. That would be fun.

Marin County is represented by a Democratic Congresswoman and voted for Obama. I have no sympathy for them whatsoever.

It's sort of like the time that Team Obama (during the primary) accused the Clintons of being "racist." Was that a load of bull? Sure. Did I cry tears over it? Heck, no. Hillary and Bill got what they deserved.

If white liberals love and want 'diversity' so much, why don't they just pack up things and move to Africa, India, Latin America, or some suc place? They can have instant version of what US will be in 100 yrs. Why wait?

"If the very best--richest, most intelligent, most creative--around the world mingle in London, Paris, NY, Tokyo, Dubai, Jerusalem, etc, I don't see any problem. What's wrong with Tokyo or Warsaw having French or Chinese restaurants, top American jazz players, businessmen from around the world, etc."

One suspects this involves the old dilemma posed by zoning laws. What right should the majority of citizens within a jurisdiction have to tell property owners what they can do with their property?

Zoning laws are usually justified within dense jurisdictions like cities by the fact that infrastructure like roads must be planned for the whole area on an integrated basis, and in doing so, the planners must have an idea of how many people will live, work and shop in what specific locations.

But in less dense areas, is this true? Shouldn’t (can’t) road and other systems adjust to the uses people choose to make of their properties?

Paradoxically, it is usually the left that insists that society does have a right to tightly regulate the pattern of development in almost any jurisdiction, however empty. But the zoning power can plainly be used for purposes the left does not like, for example ensuring the ‘character’ of an area remains what the present residents like and expected when they bought their property. Maintaining character could theoretically mean racial exclusion. More often it means in effect, even if not in intent, increasing the levels of income needed to live a particular areas. And income is correlated with race, so…

There are some libertarian lawyers and economists who dislike much of American affirmative action law but who nevertheless are very uncomfortable with the power over otherwise private decisions that zoning law gives to majorities.

"This is a bold move by the Obama administration (well, perhaps not so bold, if Marin County is a Republican area. I'll admit I know very little about the political makeup of California)."

This poster needs a serious remedial course in American demography and politics. For starters, Marin County voted 78% for Obama in 2008. There are no Republican elected officials at any level. From Wikipedia:

According to the California Secretary of State, as of January 5, 2010, Marin County has 148,723 registered voters, out of 181,918 eligible (81.75%). Of those, 81,589 (54.86%) are registered Democrats, 29,088 (19.56%) are registered Republicans, 6,141 (4.13%) are registered with other political parties, and 31,905 (21.45%) have declined to state a political party.[19] Democrats hold wide voter-registration majorities in all political subdivisions in Marin County, except for the town of Belvedere, in which Democrats only hold a 54-vote (3.52%) registration advantage. Democrats' largest registration advantage in Marin is in the town of Fairfax, wherein there are only 420 Republicans (8.0%) out of 5,248 total voters compared to 3,386 Democrats (64.52%) and 1,057 voters who have declined to state a political party ...

That really was too much like homework. Time for some Steveosphere-style entertainment:

As said, non-diverse means mostly white. No one would say that Detroit, Newark, S Texas, Zimbabwe, NBA, or China was not diverse. Actually, in the US all of one minority often is called diverse in the press. Robert Hume

I live SF Bay Area and I am very familiar with the area mentioned in the story and let me tell you this: if there is one area in the entire United States that needs be shitted down the toilet with diversity, it should be Marine County. This is the liberal capital of Northern California and it is from here, where limousine Liberals plan and execute their destruction of Middle America. These are the people who are keeping the borders open so our kids can go to school with third worlders, while their own kids enjoy going to school in an white environment.

As mater a fact, I would suggest we start busing kids from poor neighborhoods from the surrounding area into Marine County so these liberal can enjoy all the great benefits of diversity right away, instead of having to wait years to increase their diversity levels through integration.

I know racially discriminatory laws, legal covenants, public accomodations, and the like are prohibited.

Actually, I don't. I mean, I don't know if it's that broad. IME/AFAIK, so-called "anti-discrimination" law (anti-freedom law is more like it) tends to be specific. E.g., last I heard, the laws against advertising racial requirement for housing do have exceptions. The federal one I was reading did, anyway. My memory's too hazy for details though, sorry.

AA/hiring laws, too. The law I read didn't apply to small firms, under 25 or 20 employees or something. Maybe it was EEOC?

I think the government should make a list of the top 100 rich white residential areas in America, and then build public housing projects there. I think it'd be awesome if the Kennedys, Clintons, Bushs, McCains, and the rest of the gang had the privilege of enjoying diversity every day of the week.

Obama should also send Libyan refugees to live near Martha's Vineyard, Kennenbunkport, and Crawford. That would be fun.

I'd vote for that kind of "liberal" platform. There are like a zillion ways to bleed liberalism just by making it more radical.

In one Southern city I lived in the high school in the Jewish section of town (all of the synagogues and temples were within about 2 miles of each other) had an "optional program." The students were effectively sequestered from mandatory busing, and while the school was about half black they were kept in entirely separate classrooms.

I think the government should make a list of the top 100 rich white residential areas in America, and then build public housing projects there. I think it'd be awesome if the Kennedys, Clintons, Bushs, McCains, and the rest of the gang had the privilege of enjoying diversity every day of the week.

Some of these areas do not deserve such a fate -- like Highland Park in Dallas.

"If I were a billionaire with money to burn I would buy up thousands of homes in the nicest neighborhoods and rent them cheaply to illegal immigrants and ghetto trash. That would include 1,605 homes - one on either side of every congressman and one across the street."

This is fun, because the whole point of expensive neighborhoods is to keep the riff-raff out, for some value of riff-raff. Lower class people are more often black or brown than white or yellow, and so that's a visible effect of the exclusive effect of expensive houses. But, for example, most whites aren't welcome, either. A black doctor is likely to fit better than a white plumber.

The goal is to have a nice life--a safe neighborhood where your kids can play outside, where you can leave your doors unlocked, where your pregnant wife can push a stroller all around the neighborhood without fear, where the neighbors aren't having loud parties at all hours of the night, or getting into drunken fights, or leaving dead appliances or broken-down cars in front of the house.

I am an African-American, native Californian who lives in Marin County. It took a few tries to get someone to rent to us. I am a song writer/musician and my partner is a MD who runs a non-profit. As just plain folks we have had no problems with the community at large. But I was a census taker last year here, it was hard to get people to open the door.

Some of these areas do not deserve such a fate -- like Highland Park in Dallas.

George W. Bush lives in Highland Park. I think we would all agree that Mr. Bush has more than earned the privilege of living next to a public housing project.

Funny story. George Bush bought a ranch in Crawford, Texas in 1999 before he began the Republican primary. After he left the White House in 2008, he bought a house in Highland Park in Dallas and now rarely goes to Crawford anymore.

Svigor, Bush is a Northeastern carpetbagger and he suckered your people for years.

The goal is to have a nice life--a safe neighborhood where your kids can play outside, where you can leave your doors unlocked, where your pregnant wife can push a stroller all around the neighborhood without fear, where the neighbors aren't having loud parties at all hours of the night, or getting into drunken fights, or leaving dead appliances or broken-down cars in front of the house.

After that gay marriage proposition was voted down by droves of minorities sweeping Obama into office, the gays got quite nasty.

But not towards racial minorities, as far as I could tell. I seem to recall that they redirected their aggression toward Mormons and old white men. (Cf. Dan Savage's hysterical behavior on The Colbert Show shortly after the Prop. 8 vote, fervently wishing aloud that all old people would hurry up and die.)

Individual gays had a lot to say about NAMs after Prop 8 passed, but the official LGBT organizations and spokespeople clamped down on that and only ever criticized the Mormons. Which was the only politically viable strategy, really.

I seem to recall that [gays] redirected their aggression toward Mormons and old white men. (Cf. Dan Savage's hysterical behavior on The Colbert Show shortly after the Prop. 8 vote, fervently wishing aloud that all old people would hurry up and die.)

They pick on the Mormons because it's safe. Mormons are a lot like the Jews, an unpopular insular white religious minority - but conservative rather than liberal.

Individual gays had a lot to say about NAMs after Prop 8 passed, but the official LGBT organizations and spokespeople clamped down on that and only ever criticized the Mormons. Which was the only politically viable strategy, really.

Why couldn't they have picked on the "mainstream" Religious Right instead of the Mormons?

I am not a great fan of the Mormons - but neither do I tolerate bullies; and the LGBT political machine is being just that, a big bully. Pick on the Mormons because they are a convenient target.

The Mormons may be outspoken about sexual minorities, and "police" their own ranks of such, but unlike the RR they don't go out of their way to wage an anti-gay crusade outside of their own community.

The liberals in Marin county aren't really SWPL types -- those are younger urban hipsters. They are older, baby boomer corporate types who work in law, finance and things like that. Marin county is very, very expensive. Too expensive for most garden variety SWPL types to live.

Why couldn't they have picked on the "mainstream" Religious Right instead of the Mormons?

I see your point. but I think they did target both. It's not like they're usually discreet about how they feel about the mainstream religious right. I think it was just that everyone is aware of the activities of the mainstream religious right, while many never thought or knew much about the Mormons and were probably surprised and outraged at their activities (which really kicked into high gear for Prop 8, IIRC). Just guessing though, I didn't follow the Prop 8 thing that closely.

The Mormons may be outspoken about sexual minorities, and "police" their own ranks of such, but unlike the RR they don't go out of their way to wage an anti-gay crusade outside of their own community.

How is financing anti-gay campaigns and anti-gay dcumentaries not "waging an anti-gay crusade outside of their own community"? It fits the bill perfectly. They're perfectly entitled to do that, of course, but saying that they're not spreading anti-gay sentiments outside the Mormon community seems a bit disingenuous.

Yes, it was open season on Mormons after Prop 8 was passed. Some websites deliberately aimed to identify contributors to Yes on Prop 8 who were Mormon, and composer Marc Shaiman ("Hairspray," etc.) lead an effort to fire a Mormon theatre diretor who had contributed to $1,000 to the pro-8 campaign. He succeeded.

"Maybe he meant the part Jews recorded...You only have to see how snugly Jews were in bed with kings and bishops to know what a crock that is."

The historian Stephen Runciman recounts, in the first volume of his History of the Crusades, how one group of crusaders during the First Crusade wandered around the Rhineland attacking Jewish communities. In every single instance those Jews fled to one of the local authorities - usually a bishop - seeking protection. In every single instance the bishop tried to protect them. He notes that Jews of the time (ca. AD 1100) lived essentially like minor nobility.

Life in the Middle Ages sucked for most people. Sovereigns had very little conception of human rights, and didn't treat their Christian subjects much of any better than their Jewish ones. Ultimately when Jews left a country - from England to Spain to France to Russia - it was because they were actively expelled.

If I had the choice to inhabit some random person's life in the Middle Ages, and the only choice I had was over whether it was a Christian or a Jew, all I know is that I would probably choose the Jew. And I'm not even talking about the wealth, other than the ability to make money by lending it. I'm talking about your basic freedoms, your rights as recognized by the king, your chances of dying violently, your chances of dying in military service vs. a pogrom, etc.

Just look at the last century: we hear endlessly about the Jews who died in the Holocaust, but virtually nothing about the other groups who were murdered. We hear more about the Holocaust than of those murdered in the Aremenian Genocide, the Holodomor, Rwanda, China, and Cambodia combined.

Don't forget there were rich and poor Jews, and that the poor ones were tailors and cobblers and the like. It was only the Jewish elite, the Rothchilds of the time, that were in bed with the kings and bishops. They obviously weren't massacred in any pogroms.

"Don't forget there were rich and poor Jews, and that the poor ones were tailors and cobblers and the like."

That's still better than being a serf. If you go back further, you're likely to find Jews as a whole were wealthier and more powerful. They reproduced faster than the demand for new tax collectors and moneylenders.

Though I've never been to California, let alone Marin County, I grew up with Cyra McFadden's marvellous 1977 satire of the place 'The Serial: A Year in the Life of Marin County', dealing with the singular enthusiasms of ultra-liberal new-agers, and if it was accurate in it's portrayal of that time, they had it coming...

As with most American Idealism, including the founding principles, the essential seeds of self-destruction eventually flower.

Don't forget there were rich and poor Jews, and that the poor ones were tailors and cobblers and the like. It was only the Jewish elite, the Rothchilds of the time, that were in bed with the kings and bishops. They obviously weren't massacred in any pogroms.

Yes, it's always been the little Jews who pay for the big Jews' mistakes, but this has been part of being Jewish throughout the history of the diaspora so I think they've either copped to it by now, or they don't care, or something.

And the big Jews won plenty of protection for the little Jews. When the law says Jews are exempt from military service, that means the big Jews, and the little Jews. Same for exemption from usury laws.

Basically, the way to think of progroms and such is as populist holidays from the other 364 days of the year, where Jews were getting the better of the natives, exploiting them, etc.

Don't forget that the poor Jews, the tailors and cobblers, were rich from the POV of the serf.

In every single instance those Jews fled to one of the local authorities - usually a bishop - seeking protection. In every single instance the bishop tried to protect them. He notes that Jews of the time (ca. AD 1100) lived essentially like minor nobility.

The upper clergy, the elite, always sided with the Jews against the people. It was the lower clergy who tended to side with the people against the Jews. All for pretty obvious reasons.

Another thing to note is that the most serious persecution of Jews occurred in the Russian Empire, where the word "pogrom" originated. In Western Europe, from whenc the ancestors of most white Americans come, a pogrom was an incredibly rare exception. They seemed to have happened mostly during various upheavals - the Crusades, the Black Death, etc.

There was a pogrom in England in 1189-1190, around the time of King John. Jews were expelled under Edward I (the villain in Braveheart (no wonder Hollywood had no problem financing that movie)). That was the extent of serious persecution. They were allowed back in about four centuries later during the time of Cromwell. As an American of British descent there are few if any Jewish persecuters in my family tree.

But...if you want to maintain yourself as a separate people then you can't complain when you're treated differently, up to and including expulsion. If you don't identify as a native then you aren't one.

I'm not anti-Semitic. Really, I'm not. I'm just tired of the Big Pissing Match of Oppression, and of all these people running around with their underwear down with their units all pointed at me. People - whether Jews, Indians, Blacks, Hispanics, or Muslims - who would never, never, ever leave this country; who frequently demand the right for more of their numbers to come here, in fact - who bitch constantly about how badly they have it. They demand that we all put down the sword of ethnic chauvinism while keeping a firm grip on their own.

"Yes, it's always been the little Jews who pay for the big Jews' mistakes..."

Actually that's true generally: the little people (Jewish or not) pay for the mistakes of the big people (Jewish or not). Witness the aftermath of 9/11, or the financial crash. Big banks and financial cos. got bailed out after the crash. New York got over $50 billion in emergency funds after 9/11. Relatives of the victims got settlements for far more than the victims of any other tragedy in memory, and many orders of magnitude more than the relatives of KIA servicemen.

While it's true that modern Jews blow oppression out of proportion for personal gain, history was never rosy for the Jews. England may have been one of the better places (why persecute Jews when you can starve the Irish?) - but the same cannot be said for France, Spain, Italy, much less eastern Europe.

>Actually that's true generally: the little people (Jewish or not) pay for the mistakes of the big people (Jewish or not). Witness the aftermath of 9/11, or the financial crash. Big banks and financial cos. got bailed out after the crash. New York got over $50 billion in emergency funds after 9/11. [SNIP] <

9/11. The financial meltdown. The bank bailout.

So these are your examples of Jew-neutral events? Oy.

Jews have nothing to do with our Middle East policies, oh no. Nor with the financial crash or the bank bailout. Nope. All those involved only "general" "Jewish-or-not" people.

Btw, you're riding "Jews and other white people." It's okay - you're still learning. But be more subtle. If one reader here sees it, you may be sure most of the others see as well.

Concision would improve your effectiveness. A spoonful of sugar, etc. A good exercise: keep only one sentence out of ten. You will have to choose a name if you succeed at this.

"While it's true that modern Jews blow oppression out of proportion for personal gain, history was never rosy for the Jews. England may have been one of the better places (why persecute Jews when you can starve the Irish?) - but the same cannot be said for France, Spain, Italy, much less eastern Europe."

No one's dismisssing the hardship of Jews so much as pointing out that they didn't have it much if any worse than everyone else - and definitely not worse than (Christian) serfs.

Eastern Europe - Russia especially - has been a nasty place for most of its history. That's one reason communism found such fertile soil there. If the behavior of modern Russian capitalists is any indication, it's hard to blame the Russians for embracing it.

But...if you want to maintain yourself as a separate people then you can't complain when you're treated differently, up to and including expulsion. If you don't identify as a native then you aren't one.

ANTI-SEMITE!!!!

"Yes, it's always been the little Jews who pay for the big Jews' mistakes..."

Actually that's true generally

I was thinking the same thing when I wrote it. But it's especially true of Jews, when you consider their tribalism and the particulars of their identity.

While it's true that modern Jews blow oppression out of proportion for personal gain, history was never rosy for the Jews. England may have been one of the better places (why persecute Jews when you can starve the Irish?) - but the same cannot be said for France, Spain, Italy, much less eastern Europe.

Here's my problem with that - why stay? The Islamic world awaited, yet, they chose to stay in Europe, where they were often unwelcome guests. And modern Jews tend to forward the opinion (AFAICT) that life was pretty good for their ancestors in the Islamic world. Aaaand we all know Jews aren't stupid. Aaaand we all know they'll move at the drop of a black hat.

2+2=it must've been better for Jews in Europe than in the Islamic world. The math falls all apart when you consider the radically different presentations of Jewish life in the Christian world vs. the Islamic.

Then there's the rest of the world, say, Africa or central or south Asia. Why don't we hear the tales of woe from these places? Oh, because Jews didn't go there? And why TF not, if it was so bad in Europe? Gluttons for punishment?

The "lachrymose history of the Jews" just sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me. It reminds me of a certain personality type, mostly found in women, that can instantly summon a litany of petty grievances for the purposes of interpersonal conflict. Normal people (or I, at least), are taken aback because we just don't keep track of petty shit that way. Over time, you build up enough espirit d'escalier-esque experience to realize you're being played, and that in the balance of things, you're being screwed. That's when the fun begins.

"While it's true that modern Jews blow oppression out of proportion for personal gain, history was never rosy for the Jews. England may have been one of the better places (why persecute Jews when you can starve the Irish?) - but the same cannot be said for France, Spain, Italy, much less eastern Europe."

Keep in mind that Jews came to Europe from far off lands because there was money to be made, often by exploiting and oppressing the indigenous people. If we were so mean to them, they could have went back to the Middle East, but they kept coming back to places where the indigenous people made it clear that they were not welcome over and over and over. Most of the history of Jews in Europe was quite rosy, as they used their acquisition of resources to drive a phenomenally high rate of population growth.

Since Michelle Obama is not as dark black as Africans are, she presumably *can* claim the glories of Western Civilization as part of her heritage.

And anyone can take part in that heritage now, and build on it even if their ancestors mostly weren't involved in creating it.

I gather most of my ancestors were hanging out in Ireland and Scotland raiding each other for cattle or staring at the south end of a northbound mule, while western civilization was being invented by other people. Oddly, math still works fine for me, music still sounds good, electricity still works, etc.

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